Female empowerment
An interview with Guido Maria Kretschmer
“I believe there is a woman energy that is necessary for our life to work”
© Jeremy Moeller / Contributor / Getty Images
Guido Maria Kretschmer fights for the rights of women. In the interview, the designer talks about what finally needs to change in the course of equality.
Equal rights. We want them. We fight for them. We haven’t reached them yet. Gender pay, health and data gap are still with us, they are more than abstract terms, they are a reality for around 42 million women in Germany. In his work as a designer, Guido Maria Kretschmer is constantly surrounded by women – and is aware of the challenges at first hand.
During the # Voxforwoman week, Guido spoke to us in an interview about the topic of female empowerment – and what still needs to happen so that equality actually prevails in Germany. In it, he not only encourages women to take to the streets, but also to stand by themselves, to celebrate and not allow themselves to be changed. But they should not be left alone:
I believe women need support. Namely by those who have the chance and are in power to change things.
One fact that worries the designer in particular has recently become visible: the gender pay gap – and the debate about it, which only blossoms on anniversaries, but then disappears again very quickly. “The biggest flaw in the whole election now is that I have never heard a party say: women and men have to earn the same,” complains Guido Maria Kretschmer. Because only that would open the doors to real gender equality. As long as that is not the case, how are women supposed to be able to pull things off on their own? How is that supposed to work as long as they don’t even earn the same amount? That can not be. That is, I would say, an important political demand to take to the streets for, “he continues.
I believe there is a woman energy that is necessary for our life to work.
Courage, that’s what Guido Maria Kretschmer wishes women not only in politics, but also in their private lives. And the courage to stand by yourself as you are: “Otherwise, I believe that women can also be told to celebrate. For the fact that they are sometimes different. Have a different view of life. “
Equal rights do not mean having to behave in the same way, rather it is “nice to know that there are simply differences in the sensations of how you perceive life,” says the designer, who says: “I think there is one Women’s energy that is necessary for our life to work. “
Women are still under so much more pressure to be better and faster. It’s also okay to just be weak.
This energy could show itself in very different ways, without compulsion, but with a lot of permission. “The feminine women, those who are quickly injured, who want to be loved, who perhaps dream of family, they can go on like this, if you please. They too have the right to be the same,” emphasizes Guido Maria Kretschmer. In the professional world in particular, career competencies are often associated with men, so that women ultimately still have the impression that they have to adapt to the opposite sex – in order to be treated equally. You don’t have to earn equality. It should be the basic foundation for development.
“That is also part of my dream of a society that you accept all the things that are part of life, that you don’t think you have to be different now or act as women like men. No.”, emphasizes Guido Maria Kretschmer. As a result, women would only be under more pressure to be faster and better in order to be successful, while forgetting something essential: “It’s also okay to just be weak.”